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> But if Google Cloud Platform can't stand on its own, and merges into AWS or Azure, that's less competition. The other complexity is the actual infrastructure

> But if Google Cloud Platform can't stand on its own, and merges into AWS or Azure, that's less competition. The other complexity is the actual infrastructure and IP. Inside, Google is very “vertically integrated” to making software services. They have a huge toolbox of custom software and a ton of custom magic they built into the data centers and infrastructure. I’m not sure that there have been any modern cases of antitrust breakups that would have as much complexity and nuance. Bell could easily be divided geographically but of course that makes no sense here. I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention. What happens to Google’s famous monorepo? Does it get chopped up? Are the libraries and tools shared and each child company gets a fork? What about the SRE team that manages the shared database infrastructure for every team at Google? What happens to the database that stores users accounts? Each user has basically one identity across each Google product. What happens to your YouTube account if it ends up in a different company than your GMail account? And of course, who gets the physical data centers? If that goes to GCP, does that mean that search needs to negotiate a usage price as part of the breakup negotiations? Imagine the contract YouTube would have to write for renting storage?

throwup238 2y ago
How is that different from Bellcore [1][2]? Bell was broken up in the early 1980s, they already had plenty of shared software infrastructure by then. The monorepo is an interesting complication but hardly a dealbreaker that can't be restructured around. [1] https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-legacy-of-bellcore https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-le... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jart 2y ago
lool monorepo regulators are already checkmated 100 moves ahead. open sourcing it is the only way they'll break that monster up. doj clowns should go home they're out of their depth.
- bearjaws 2y ago
  You must be pre-ATT to think that a monorepo will stop a break up "lool"
fuzztester 2y ago
None of those issues matters much, to anyone except Google, which is getting broken up anyway. >I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention. I can, easily. Value for who, exactly? And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  >And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition. A few results from a Google search for the word antitrust: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law (The above was the first result; see the first paragraph at that link.) https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  It’s supposed to increase competition, but I’m skeptical. I think a lot of the winners will be the other mega-companies, but there will be a lot of loss across the industry. I don’t think the goal should be to punish Google for the sake of punishment, and I see that as happening. I agree it might increase competition in all the future businesses that Google doesn’t enter, but not in the businesses many complain about Google today. 1. Ending the default-search payments will take away 20% of apples profits, and most of Mozilla’s revenue. Everyone but Apple already uses the chrome rendering engine. This is purely a value-destroyer. 2. Chrome certainly wouldn’t survive a breakup in its current form. There is no way a child company can afford to pay this many engineers, especially if the DOJ adds restrictions like they can’t make money from Google-search defaults. This might kill open-source chromium in the process. 3. Fitbit and nest are some examples of product lines that probably won’t be sustainable on their own. But certainly there is more (Fi?). Any company that ends up with them would probably shutter it for the savings. This would cede both their markets to Chinese crap and other American monopolies. Plus all the random projects people mention like Google Fonts. I’m guessing there are a ton of things in this bucket. 4. We certainly are not about to see a variety in phone operating systems. If Google is chopped up, the new android (parent) company certainly will be far poorer and have far less resources than Apple. This will cause the entire android ecosystem to languishing as new features slow and shift power back to Samsung and existing companies that can afford to push features without Google. 5. Google Cloud Platform would likely be a rare winner here. Theyre profitable (barely) and suddenly getting a whole new massive customer on the books (remaining Google parts) would give them a massive boost. 6. Whatever business owns Gmail in the end will keep those customers. Customers probably won’t change email providers. 7. This would probably accelerate the “new feature not available in Europe” trend, as existing Google had a lot of agreements with EU to maintain old features for “anticompetitive” reasons. The leaner and more competitive businesses certainly would ditch that market to better compete elsewhere. Personally, I think a better approach is to treat Google more like infrastructure and require them to share their efforts. Open up the search index to others (paid, but for any use). Force their accounting to “buy” it internally with the same public margin. This would allow competitors in AI training, in search engine algos, UX, etc. Similarly, you can do a similar thing for Maps, YouTube, Play Store, etc. They show off which services they maintain that have billions of users. Target those, not all the markets they still compete in.

throwup238 2y ago

How is that different from Bellcore [1][2]? Bell was broken up in the early 1980s, they already had plenty of shared software infrastructure by then. The monorepo is an interesting complication but hardly a dealbreaker that can't be restructured around. [1] https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-legacy-of-bellcore https://journal.businesstoday.org/bt-online/2017/3/18/the-le... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jart 2y ago

lool monorepo regulators are already checkmated 100 moves ahead. open sourcing it is the only way they'll break that monster up. doj clowns should go home they're out of their depth.

bearjaws 2y ago
You must be pre-ATT to think that a monorepo will stop a break up "lool"

fuzztester 2y ago

None of those issues matters much, to anyone except Google, which is getting broken up anyway. >I can’t imagine a breakup doing anything but destroy value and competition, even if you support antitrust intervention. I can, easily. Value for who, exactly? And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition.

fuzztester 2y ago
>And antitrust intervention is supposed to increase competition. A few results from a Google search for the word antitrust: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law (The above was the first result; see the first paragraph at that link.) https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/antitrust.asp
vineyardmike 2y ago
It’s supposed to increase competition, but I’m skeptical. I think a lot of the winners will be the other mega-companies, but there will be a lot of loss across the industry. I don’t think the goal should be to punish Google for the sake of punishment, and I see that as happening. I agree it might increase competition in all the future businesses that Google doesn’t enter, but not in the businesses many complain about Google today. 1. Ending the default-search payments will take away 20% of apples profits, and most of Mozilla’s revenue. Everyone but Apple already uses the chrome rendering engine. This is purely a value-destroyer. 2. Chrome certainly wouldn’t survive a breakup in its current form. There is no way a child company can afford to pay this many engineers, especially if the DOJ adds restrictions like they can’t make money from Google-search defaults. This might kill open-source chromium in the process. 3. Fitbit and nest are some examples of product lines that probably won’t be sustainable on their own. But certainly there is more (Fi?). Any company that ends up with them would probably shutter it for the savings. This would cede both their markets to Chinese crap and other American monopolies. Plus all the random projects people mention like Google Fonts. I’m guessing there are a ton of things in this bucket. 4. We certainly are not about to see a variety in phone operating systems. If Google is chopped up, the new android (parent) company certainly will be far poorer and have far less resources than Apple. This will cause the entire android ecosystem to languishing as new features slow and shift power back to Samsung and existing companies that can afford to push features without Google. 5. Google Cloud Platform would likely be a rare winner here. Theyre profitable (barely) and suddenly getting a whole new massive customer on the books (remaining Google parts) would give them a massive boost. 6. Whatever business owns Gmail in the end will keep those customers. Customers probably won’t change email providers. 7. This would probably accelerate the “new feature not available in Europe” trend, as existing Google had a lot of agreements with EU to maintain old features for “anticompetitive” reasons. The leaner and more competitive businesses certainly would ditch that market to better compete elsewhere. Personally, I think a better approach is to treat Google more like infrastructure and require them to share their efforts. Open up the search index to others (paid, but for any use). Force their accounting to “buy” it internally with the same public margin. This would allow competitors in AI training, in search engine algos, UX, etc. Similarly, you can do a similar thing for Maps, YouTube, Play Store, etc. They show off which services they maintain that have billions of users. Target those, not all the markets they still compete in.